Elle Aycart

Sunday, January 14, 2018

Sky Gonzalez pressed Send and threw her cell
in the air as high as she could. There was nothing but trees and snow around,
no cell coverage to be had where she was standing. Maybe another six feet up,
the situation was different.

She caught the phone on its way down. Checked
the screen. Nope. Jesus Christ, the whole country was infested with butt-ugly,
fake-tree cell towers, and she had to get lost in a place where all the damn trees
were real.

Turning against the gusts of wind and brushing
flakes away from her face, she gave it another go, tossing as far as she dared.
Which wasn’t far, really, because she wasn’t the most coordinated person in the
world. If she dropped the phone and it smashed into a million
pieces, or she lost sight of where it landed, that was it for her last lifeline
to the outside world. She’d never find her cute, sparkly cell again—slick
and thin and white.

In hindsight, going for that color had been a
very poor decision.

Still no dice. Squinting, she tossed the
device up again. Hopefully her message would eventually go through, and Lola would
contact the authorities. After all, it was Lola’s fault Sky was in this bind. Of
all the crazy shit her sister had pulled over the years, this stunt trumped
every one of them.

Every. Single. One.

She caught her cell a third time. Nothing.
Well, practice made perfect, right? Besides, she didn’t have much else to do except
throw that stupid phone into the sky and continue walking. The road must lead
somewhere. Sooner or later she’d arrive there. Or she’d get lucky and her cell
would catch a signal. Or she’d freeze to death and become a cautionary tale to
stupid girls. Whatever came first.

She looked back to where her car was being
buried under a steady fall of big flakes. Steam was still coming from the hood.
How a car could overheat in the middle of a snowstorm, she didn’t know. That
annoying little red light on the dashboard that had flashed at her for the last
twenty miles might have had something to do with it. Not that she could have done
shit about it, seeing as the last person she’d crossed paths with was at a gas
station a hundred miles away. Or so. She wasn’t great at calculating distances
or reading maps.

Orienting herself wasn’t one of her fortes
either, evidenced by the embarrassing fact that her destination should only have
been about fifteen miles from the regional airport and she’d still managed to
miss it. She’d tried backtracking, but she’d only succeeded in getting more
lost. And that was hours ago. The car’s GPS had stopped working right after she
left the airport, and her cell had been without a steady signal for a long while
before the car itself died. For all she knew, she’d crossed state lines. Heck,
she might be in Canada. Or in frigging Alaska.

Great way to kick off the New Year. Best first
of January ever.

Eyes on her airborne cell, she tripped and
fell flat on her face, the useless device landing on the back of her head.

Coordinate colors? Forecast fashion trends? Put
together a knockout outfit from a thrift shop? All that she could do, no
problem. But apparently, throwing an object up in a straight line and catching
it on the fly were not in her skill set.

Aggravated, she got up, patted the snow from
her pants, and burrowed her hands under her jacket. The wind wasn’t too strong,
but the constant bee stings of flakes on her skin, along with her shitty
clothes, made her feel like she was freezing.The extremely fashionable hand-me-downs from her boss were not designed
for off-road snow trudging.

Then again, she should have been strolling
around Paris’s Golden Triangle of luxury boutiques and haute couture labels. Or
sitting in a cute little café, watching the sun set over the Champs Elysées,
enjoying the mild chill of the French winter—which this year was supposed to be
warmer than usual—sipping red wine, and munching on a baguette slathered in gooey
cheese. For that, she was perfectly dressed.

Thank God she’d gotten that ridiculous white
bunny-ear hat at the airport, ugly as it was, and the white bunny-paw mittens.
The snowstorm must have caught other travelers off guard, because those had
been the only winter garments in the tiny store. High heels and a bunny hat. Hell
of a fashion statement. On the plus side, she was color coordinated down to her
underwear. White pants. White jacket. White boots. White hat.

She should have stayed in the broken car. No
heat and a cramped space were a thousand times preferable to walking in the
open, but she was so tired, she couldn’t afford to sit idle. She’d fall asleep
in a second and wake up a Popsicle. Or, more to the point, not wake up at all.

That she’d been awake thirty hours and
counting wasn’t helping. But why would she have wasted her last night in New
York City sleeping when she thought she had a transatlantic flight ahead of
her? Eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. Sky was infamous for drifting off in
the weirdest places and the most impossible positions. Tourist class, no leg room,
screaming babies? Bring it on. Heck, once she’d zonked out in a jumper seat and
snored there for hours, back in the day when she flew standby, courtesy of a
friend’s industry-discount tickets.

Looking forward to a cozy nap in coach, she’d gone
partying with friends instead of resting—and checking her flight details.
Now she was stuck in the middle of nowhere, sleep-deprived, knee-deep in snow, freezing
her butt off, and probably catching the mother of all flus.

Minnesota. Where the heck was Minnesota? She
was an East Coast person through and through. She hadn’t been this far west
since that time she took the wrong train and ended up in Newark. That had been
traumatic enough, thank you very much.

She glanced around. It was beautiful, though.
Perfect snowflakes poured out of the sky, blanketing the whole landscape in
white. Very… Christmassy. Too bad it wasn’t Christmas, and she was lost, alone,
and irremediably soaked. Her hair and makeup were ruined. And let’s not talk
about her brand-new manicure. Hansel and Gretel dropped bread crumbs. Her? She
was dropping fake nails all over the place.

Damn the countryside. Not a single soul around
to ask for directions. Where were aggressive taxi drivers when one needed them?
Rude walkers, honking cars, hotdog vendors, a Starbucks on every corner—there was
nothing like that here. No landmarks she would recognize. Just snow, trees, and
a back road, poorly delineated and with worse signage, all of it getting
fuzzier by the second.

And that was the view in the middle of the
day. She shuddered to think how all this would look when it started getting
dark. Were there wolves in Minnesota? Bears? Because if her high-heeled boots were
shit walking in the snow, just wait until she had to climb a tree.

Sky was about to toss the cell up again, but she
stopped. Sighed. Who was she kidding? She’d need a rocket launcher to make it
past the treetops. She might as well put her phone to better use before the
battery died or it got buried in the snow, Fargo style, until the end of
time.

She pressed the recording function and started
talking. “This is the last will and testament of Sky Gonzalez. This message is
addressed to my sister Lola. I leave you, Lola, all my belongings, which you’ll
find in a car buried under a ton of snow somewhere in the middle of Minnesota,
where you sent me!” she yelled into the device. “Know that I blame you
for everything, and I will haunt you from the afterlife for freaking ever!
You’ll never have a good night’s sleep, I guarantee you. Damn your
presbyopia! Yes, you’ve hit forty. Yes, you need glasses. Own it, for
Christ’s sake!”

Screaming seemed to help, marginally. To vent
her frustration, if nothing else. She knew she shouldn’t be mad at Lola. After
all, it wasn’t completely her sister’s fault. Never mind how busy she’d been, Sky
should not have asked her sister to fill out her application for the semester-abroad
program. At the very least, she should have suspected something was fishy when
the secretary in the placement department had been so glad about Sky’s choice
of location, she not only arranged the flight for her, but also informed her
that the position came with a voucher for a car rental. Big red flag if Sky
ever saw one.

“I don’t need a car,” she’d told the woman. Why
would she? Public transportation was a far better option in European cities.

In all her years as a
part-time undergrad at that school, taking classes here and there whenever she
could afford it, Sky had never heard the old hag be so nice to anyone. So she
went for broke. “Okay, if I can choose, a cute little Mini would work.” Driving
in style trumped trunk space any day. Besides, parking would be at a premium in
Paris.

“A what?”

She’d gone too far. “If it’s too much, I can—”

“No, no,” the secretary had hurried to interrupt.
“It will be arranged.”

Probably she’d thought Sky was going to pull
her application if she didn’t get her preferred car. Which she would have. In a
heartbeat. Not because of the car, but because she had thought she was going to
Paris, France. Not Paris, Minnesota. Who in her right mind would choose an
internship in Minnesota when Europe was available?

Sky Gonzalez, apparently.

Entering the semester-abroad program had been an
ill-omened idea. She should have accepted her destiny as an eternal student and
sales clerk turned personal shopper’s assistant. Dressing in castoffs from her
boss and living vicariously through others people’s pics on Instagram. Making ends
meet, a big smile on her face, happy and satisfied with her lot.

But traveling to Europe in the hopes of becoming
a buyer for a classy continental retailer? Not in the cards for a Gonzalez.

Sky blew warm air over her frozen fingers. Manipulating
her cell with the mittens had been a no-go, so she’d stashed them in her jacket.
Time to fish them out, or she was going to lose more than her nails. Rummaging
in her pockets produced only one mitten. Oh, shit. She must have dropped the
other one. Fantastic. Getting better and
better. Her teeth were chattering. The storm didn’t look like it was lightening
up anytime soon, so she put on the one mitten and picked up her speed.

She pressed Record again and spoke into the
phone. “I left Arnie at the dog hotel, so you are getting your sorry ass over
there and picking him up, Lola. To hell with your allergies.”

Arnie hated it there. Ungrateful mutt. Much as
it pained Sky, she couldn’t take him with her overseas. She’d dished out an
indecent amount of money, money she couldn’t afford, to that first-class kennel,
and he’d looked at her as if she were dumping him into the pound. “If I freeze
to death… which at this stage is a very strong possibility, because the
clattering sound you’re hearing is my teeth… I expect you to care for him. The
expensive doggie treats he likes. His massage and spa days. The whole shebang, Lola.
Do not cut corners with my baby. You owe me.”

When Sky stopped yelling into the phone, she
realized the screeching she was hearing wasn’t coming from her. It sounded like
brakes locking. She turned around in time to see the shiny grill of a black monster
truck barreling her way.

Her eyes opened wide. Holy shit.

It was a damn good thing she couldn’t feel
half her body anymore, because this was sooo going to hurt.

****

The second that Logan saw a flash of long red
hair and something resembling human eyes, he wrenched the wheel, sending the truck
spinning to the shoulder, barely missing the tiny figure in the middle of the
road. Jesus Christ. Who in her right mind wore white from head to toe in a
blizzard?

The truck screeched to a halt, the passenger
side a mere half an inch from the woman. He jumped down and ran around the
front. She had fallen to the ground. Fuck, had he hit her? “You okay?”

“You… almost… ran… me… over,” she said, her
teeth chattering. From fear or cold, he couldn’t tell. Well, he could. It had
to be cold. Her clothes were flimsy at best. Flashy, but not warm at all.

“Are you crazy? Standing in the middle of the road,
all in white? I could have killed you.”

He saw a gleam of defiance in her eyes. “White’s…
trendy… this… year.”

Right. “There’s nothing ‘trendy’ in this part
of Minnesota, lady. Where’s your car?”

“There.” She pointed in the direction Logan
had come from. “Or there,” she corrected herself, pointing in the opposite
direction. “Not sure now. It all looks… white.”

No shit.

He tried to help her stand, but her legs
buckled, so he lifted her in his arms. “Let’s get you somewhere warm, shall we?”
After placing her on the passenger seat, he cranked up the heat.

“Can’t leave… without… my bags.”

He stepped outside and scouted the ground a
little. Her footsteps indicated she’d been walking in the same direction he’d
been driving, which meant he must have passed her vehicle and missed it. “What
car are you driving?”

She sneezed, the useless synthetic-fur hood on
her jacket flopping over her bunny-eared head. Out of the whole stupid outfit,
that bunny-eared hat was the most sensible piece. “A Mini.”

Great. Wherever she’d left the car, it was
probably buried now.

“We’ll come back for it tomorrow,” he decided,
jumping back in and revving up the engine.

“My Manolos are in there.”

Manolos. Oh, boy, wasn’t that a blast from the
past? Another shoe whore. Just what he needed. “They’ll still be here tomorrow,
believe me.”

She was going to object, but a sudden sneeze
derailed her. And another and another. He opened the glove compartment, took out
a wad of napkins, and offered it to her. “Why did you leave the car?”

“Stopped working,” she answered, grabbing a napkin
and wiping her nose. “And when I began walking… it wasn’t snowing so much.”

“You aren’t from anywhere around here, are
you?” Her dumb clothes were a dead giveaway. Her actions too.

She shook her head, placing her hands in front
of the air vent. “New York City.”

It figured.

She narrowed her dark eyes on him. “Why?”

The heat had kicked in. She must have finally
felt it, because her teeth weren’t chattering as hard. She was even getting
some color back in her face.

He looked resolutely forward and edged the
truck into motion. “For your information—next time you decide to take a stroll
in the Minnesota countryside, you need better shoes. And clothes. You don’t
assume the weather conditions will improve. And you never leave your vehicle. Ever.
Under any circumstances. You don’t stand in the middle of the road without wearing
reflectors. And—”

A sudden move from the passenger side caught
his attention. He gave her a quick glance and saw, flabbergasted, that her head
had lolled to the side.

“Lady, you okay?”

A light snore was all the answer he got.

“And you don’t get into a stranger’s ride and
proceed to check out,” he muttered. Jesus fucking Christ. Talk about a lack of
common sense.

Chapter 2

Sky woke up enveloped in softness and toasty warmth.
She stretched luxuriously. Wow, she hadn’t slept that well in tourist class
since frigging ever. No cramps, no sore neck, plenty of leg room. Silence all around
her.

Then the fogginess in her head cleared and it all
came back to her. Slowly at first, tumbling and rushing after that. Minnesota,
the snowstorm, the truck barreling in her direction, her screwed-up plans.

She wasn’t in a plane on her way to France.
She was on a couch in somebody’s living room.

“Fuck. Shit. Crap. You’re so dead, Lola!”

A hearty laugh caught her by surprise.
“Sleeping Beauty is finally awake. And she’s got a mouth on her.”

She turned toward the voice to find a mountain
of a man leaning against the wall, looking pretty amused. He must have just
come from the outside, because he still had on his jacket and a wool watch cap.
Between that and the beard, she couldn’t see much of his face except the big
green eyes staring at her.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, trying to get up. “I
didn’t mean to—” She wasn’t sure what she hadn’t meant to, but the unstoppable
itch in her nose wouldn’t be denied, and she choked out a sneeze. Then another
and another. “Sorry,” she managed to let out. “Serial sneezer.”

“Here,” he said, handing her a tissue.

She took it and blew her nose. “Thanks. You’re
the guy who almost ran me over, aren’t you?”

He pulled off the watch cap, freeing a dark
mop of shaggy hair. “Guilty as charged. In my defense, though, you were
perfectly camouflaged.”

Wow, the mountain man was handsome, in a rough,
unkempt sort of way. He had lines of laughter around his eyes, very visible
because the skin there was white and the rest of his face was deeply tanned. An
outdoor tan, not a fake bake. It suited him. Most men she knew would have
bathed in moisturizer or gone under the knife to make those lines less
noticeable. Then again, most men she knew would have had a heart attack if they
woke and found that out-of-control beard on their faces.

If this guy was anything to go by, then
metrosexual didn’t seem to be a big thing around here.

“That I was.” She looked out the window. It
was bright out there. Morning bright. “Seems like I dozed off.”

His chuckle was irritatingly male. “More like
passed out. I carried you in and you didn’t stir, not even once. It’s been
almost twelve hours since then.”

Twelve hours? She looked down at herself. She
was still dressed, a quilt covering her. No jacket.

He must have read her mind. “Your jacket was
soaked. Heads up: in Minnesota, you do need a real, waterproof coat. Your pants
and sweater were wet too, but I figured you might object to waking up in a
stranger’s house and wearing only your underwear.”

Object? She would have totally freaked.

“Thanks for helping me out there.” She offered
her hand. “Sky Gonzalez.”

He sat beside her and engulfed her hand in his.
“Logan Nolting. You’re welcome.”

The sofa sank under his weight. Wow, Mr.
Mountain Man was huge, with broad shoulders and bulging arms. The manspreading
didn’t help either.

This close, she realized his eyes weren’t just
green, but yellow and blue and brown. As if whoever had put him together
couldn’t make up their mind. This guy was handsome. Well, the part she could
see, because the shaggy hair and Duck Dynasty beard covered most of his face.

Sky broke the
contact and looked away, noticing her bags off to the side. “You found my car.”

He nodded. “In a ditch, covered by snow. Oh, and this.” He reached inside his pocket and
handed her her missing mitten. “It was right there, by the door. Paw-print
facing the snow.”

“Of course it was,” she muttered, chagrined.
“Damn Murphy’s Law.”

“Murphy’s Law is a bitch on the best of days.
There’s no need to help it along and make matters worse.” She didn’t care for
his tone, but before she could comment on that, he continued. “What on earth
compelled you to rent a city car like that in the middle of a Minnesota blizzard?
And a white car on top of that?”

She didn’t have a good answer. Nothing that
would make the level of condescension in his voice diminish, anyway. By the
time she landed in Minnesota and tried to change her rental to an SUV, it had
been too late. There were none available. Guess she had
to count her blessings that she hadn’t gone for a cute little electric car with
an eighty-mile driving range. She shuddered to think what Mr. Monster Truck
would have said about that.

“I nearly had to call the rental company and
ask them for a GPS location,” he said. “It was that or wait for the spring
thaw.”

“How did you know it was a rental?”

“Nobody in their right mind would buy a Mini in
rural Minnesota. Nobody. You didn’t strike me as a nutjob.”

“Yeah, well. I wouldn’t bet on that. I better
contact the rental company.” She reached down to the sofa table, where her cell
and purse lay. “No signal. Color me surprised.”

“The whole town is located in between towers,
in a protected zone. Reception is sketchy at best, unless you have a satellite
phone. The landline is out too because of the storm. A tree fell and took out a
telephone pole.”

“No internet?” she asked, already panicking.
She hadn’t been without internet since… ever, really. She wasn’t sure she could
survive.

He shook his head, as if it weren’t that big a
thing. “You don’t need to worry about your car. We already had it towed into town.”

“Where exactly are we? What’s the name of this
town?”

Logan snorted. “Good question. Can’t tell
you.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, stiffening.

“The residents developed a strong objection to
the town’s original name, so they voted to change it. But they can’t decide on a
new one.”

“Fantastic.
So I’m stuck in…”

“NoName, Minnesota,” he filled in. “It’s kind of temporary.”

“I guess that’s that for calling an Uber.”

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Yes—not
that the locals would jump into strangers’ cars. So, who’s Lola and why is she
dead?”

“My sister.
Long story. Wouldn’t want to bore you. What’s the closest city? Or the next
town? Does it have a name?”

“I don’t know what you’d consider a city. Paris is down Route 65 about
half an hour. Turn right and you’ll wind up in Grand Rapids. Where were you
going?”

She hadn’t been that lost. “New job in Paris.”

“Your car will be out of commission for a
while. How soon are you starting? We’re snowed in, but once the main roads are
clear, I can drive you to Paris.”

“Thanks, but my job isn’t starting for another
three weeks. I came ahead of time to do some sightseeing.”

Logan stared at her. “I’m sorry to be the one
to break it to you, but any sightseeing in Paris can be done in five minutes.
Maybe less.”

“I know. Now. When I made my travel plans, I
thought I was going to Paris, France. Not Paris, frigging Minnesota.”

Logan opened his eyes wide, a smirk emerging
from under his facial hair. “You’re shitting me, right?”

“Nope. School arranged for the plane ticket
and the car rental. As far as I knew, I had applied to be a student teacher of
English in Europe. I discovered my mistake at the airport, when my flight
wasn’t taking off from the international terminal.”

“So that’s why your sister is going to die?”

“A long, agonizing death, I assure you.”

“I guess you don’t have a place to stay
either.”

“In Paris, France, I did. In Paris, Minnesota,
I don’t.” She had maxed out her credit cards paying for the cute European hotel
she’d planned to stay at for the three weeks before her internship started. Her
savings had gone to buying euros and paying for Arnie’s boarding. “But don’t
worry. If you let me make a call once the landline is repaired, I’ll contact
the rental agency and be out of your way in no—” She held her breath, reached for
a tissue from the box, and sneezed again. “—time.”

“There’s no hurry. The roads are blocked.
Better to sit this one out.”

At her first chance, she was going to get her
hands on a working phone and contact her school. There had to be a way to
change her application, damn it. If she had to stay in the US, then she could
do so in a major city, not some backwater where they didn’t even have internet.

At that moment the doorbell rang.

“Excuse me.” She lost sight of Logan as he
went to open the door.

“Good morning,” said a woman’s voice.

“Hi, Carol, what can I do for you?”

Plastic rustling. “This is for you,
Alchemist.”

“Thanks.”

“Say, I heard you had Bart tow some weird car
into town. Where’s the owner?”

“She’s resting. The car got stuck—”

“She? You have a ‘she’ here?”

“I don’t think now’s the time—”

Whatever he thought, it was irrelevant,
because a middle-aged woman peeked through the doorway from the hall. She
smiled widely and walked toward Sky. “Hello, I’m Carol McGowan. The neighbor.”

“Sky.” Unable to repress it, she let out a
sneeze and the guest stopped dead in her tracks. “Sorry,” Sky mumbled, mopping
her nose. “Got a nasty bug on my way here.”

“Oh, boy,” Logan muttered.

Carol took a step backward, then another, an
expression akin to terror on her face. “I remember now. I forgot something in the
oven. Gotta go. Nice to meet you.”

Their guest left in a hurry.

“What was that?”

Logan shrugged, leaving the white plastic bag
on the table and taking off his jacket. “Nosy people being nosy. Don’t mind
her.”

“Did she call you ‘Alchemist’?”

“Nosy people being nosy and nuts. You
okay?” he asked as she sneezed again. “You look flushed.”

“I think I have a fever.”

He leaned close and touched her forehead,
pinning her down with his gorgeous and worried stare. If her temperature hadn’t
been high before, it was now. It had skyrocketed at the contact, so much that
she could almost forget about the shaggy hair and Unabomber beard.

Almost.

His clothes—ratty jeans and a black T-shirt—weren’t
much better. A fashion statement, this guy wasn’t. Such a pity, because the
frame was spectacular. Great eye candy.

“Yes, you do,” he assented, totally oblivious
to her lecherous thoughts. “Let me get you something for that.”

She must be delirious, because she was ogling
his ass. Fine as that ass might be, it was attached to a whole lot of failed hipster
look she totally hated.

As he came back with a thermometer and an
aspirin bottle, his cell beeped.

“Hey, why does your phone work?”

“Satellite.” He checked the message and said
resignedly, “That was fast.”

“What was fast?”

“Emergency town council meeting.”

****

The
mayor scowled down from the podium. The pandemic squad surrounded him, standing
in judgment. “What the hell were you thinking, Alchemist? Bringing
a potential patient zero into town!”

Logan looked up at the ceiling of the council room, praying for
patience. He could feel the eyes of every adult resident of NoName focused squarely
on him. Of all the towns in America, why oh why did he have to end up in one
run by crazy preppers? As if that weren’t bad enough, he had to live next door to
Carol McGowan, head cheerleader of the frigging pandemic squad, a bunch of
relentless wackos who believed the world was one influenza away from total
extinction. Sky could have waved an automatic rifle and Carol wouldn’t have
blinked, but a sneeze? Ha! That had sent the lady running so fast, it was a
fucking miracle his property wasn’t cordoned off. Then again, the day was
young. Lots of shit could still go down.

“What would you have me do?” he asked, standing and addressing the
crowd. “I couldn’t let her freeze to death.”

Carol tsked him. “Who’s talking about letting her freeze to death?
Maybe point her in the right direction? Away from here?”

“She was freezing,” he repeated. “She had no means of getting anywhere.
No way of sitting out the weather either.”

“What do you mean? Didn’t she have a bug-out
bag?” At his shake of the head, Carol lifted her arms in dismay. “Who goes on
the road without one of those?”

“What’s going on? These crazy people are up in
arms because of a fucking sneeze.”

Tyler barked out a laugh. “What did you do now
to get these nice ladies’ panties in a twist?”

Nice ladies? The pandemic squadron was a bunch
of innocent-looking women who were nothing short of radical lunatics, ready to
invade your house at the drop of a hat to demonstrate, whether you liked it or
not, how to survive the end of civilization by boiling, sterilizing, and
isolating. And God forbid you didn’t listen.

The first time he’d met his lovely neighbors,
they’d been running a drill while wearing hazmat suits. He’d committed the
ultimate offense and offered them his hand in greeting. Apparently, a hand had
more germs on it than a toilet seat. They shoved a pandemic-preparedness kit at
him and ordered him to glove himself before contact.

Such a pity no one had photographed his facial
expression upon hearing those words. It had been epic.

After the shock wore off, he’d questioned how
his germs could make it through their hazmat suits even if he didn’t wear
gloves. Second fatal mistake. Almost two years of drills later, he still didn’t
know how their theories of transmission worked, but he’d learned not to
question. Faster that way.

“She was healthy when I met her, you ass.
Well, mostly, but that’s beside the point.” Logan addressed the pandemic squad
up on the platform. “Sorry to break it to you. This is a free country. You
can’t go quarantining people at will.”

“Wrong. Exactly because this is a free country,
we can.”

There were some mumbles of agreement from the
crowd, “That’s right” and “You got it” and “Try to stop us.”

“We live in a democracy. Let’s take a vote,” Carol
suggested. “All in favor of quarantining Patient Zero, please raise your
hands.”

Everyone, including a smirking Ty, raised
their hands.

“Oh, come on,” Logan grumbled. “Really? You
serious?”

“Motion accepted,” Carol said, wrestling the gavel
from the mayor and banging it on the podium. “Besides, Patient Zero doesn’t
have to know she’s been quarantined. Just keep her indoors by any means
necessary until she gets better.”

“Or she kicks the bucket,” somebody chimed in.

Nuts. The whole bunch of them. Down to the very
last one.

“She’s not Patient Zero, people. Her name is
Sky and she’s got the flu, damn it. Not Ebola. Just a common, garden-variety
flu.”

“Yeah, and all the unmarked vans coming and
going,” someone else added. “We like living off the radar. That much movement draws
attention.”

“Not to mention your interns, who are a grave
security risk,” Carol said.

Logan frowned. “What are you saying? That my crew
is a security risk because they’re foreigners?”

“Not because they’re foreigners, but because
we don’t know them,” Carol scolded. “You know we don’t discriminate. For us, every
person is a possible security threat, regardless of race, religion, or
nationality.”

That was true. Preppers didn’t discriminate.
They treated everyone according to the same crazy standards.

Why did Megan have to find the love of her
life in this godforsaken town? Too bad that in his quest to save the world and
keep his sister close by, he hadn’t stopped to think before following her and setting
up shop. For such an innovative project, raising funds and international
awareness were very important. Thanks to these tinfoil wackos, recruiting interns
who wouldn’t run for the hills by the second day was becoming more and more difficult.

“These people see our modus operandi and they talk.
We don’t know who they talk to. They could even be taking pics for the
government.”

More murmurs.

“Which government? Ours or theirs?” Logan
asked jokingly.

“Both, probably,” someone said.

Even more murmurs.

This was so ridiculous.

“Sure. I’m teaching them to build dirty bombs in
my top-secret lab. What is this? Am I the only topic on the list today?”
Because it seemed to him like a waste of everybody’s time to call an emergency
town meeting for a couple of sneezes.

That Sky had a fever of 102 degrees, he was
keeping to himself. Otherwise this crowd would skip the quarantine and move
straight to dissection.

“What about voting on a name for the town?”
Logan suggested.

“That’s right,” somebody seconded from the
crowd. “I need an official address for my business.”

And there they went, all talking at once.
Fighting over it.

Logan reckoned they would be without a name
for a fucking long time. But quarantining a poor, innocent woman and violating
her rights because of a sneeze? On that they unanimously agreed. “As much as
I’d love to stay and debate with you guys, I gotta go.”

Sky hadn’t looked so hot when he left. Well,
correction, she’d looked hot. Too hot as a matter of fact. Hopefully she’d taken
his suggestion and gone straight to bed, but who knew. She might have decided
to go out to cool down. If the pandemic squad found her on his porch or, God
forbid, wandering the streets, they would freak out. What the government did to
aliens—if they existed, as everyone around here believed they did, of course—was
small potatoes compared to what these nutcases would do to her. And to him by
extension.

He’d stop by the diner. Get her chicken soup.
And then take a detour to the general store. Stock up on Tylenol PM to knock
her out for the next couple of days.

As he was leaving, his sister called out,
“Remember, keep Patient Zero indoors by whatever means necessary. Use your
charm.”

When will a book get to Kindle / Nook / etc?

Loose Id keeps a new release on their site for two months. After that, the other sites like Fictionwise, AllRomance, and Amazon etc. receive the e-book. However, all the books at Loose Id come in multi-formats, including the .prc format that works on the Kindle and the .epub format that works on the Nook.

If buying an ebook from a publisher, Fictionwise, AllRomance, you need to download the file onto your computer and then transfer (copy) it from your computer to your e-reader by the USB cable. Here's a quick how-to for the Kindle.

About Me

After a colorful array of jobs all over Europe ranging from translator to chocolatier to travel agent to sushi chef to flight dispatcher, Elle Aycart is certain of one thing and one thing only: aside from writing romances, she has abso-frigging-lutely no clue what she wants to do when she grows up. Not that it stops her from trying all sorts of crazy stuff. While she is probably now thinking of a new profession, her head never stops churning new plots for her romances. She lives currently in Barcelona, Spain, with her husband and two daughters, although who knows, in no time she could be living at the Arctic Circle in Finland, breeding reindeer.